I have soft brakes after replacing both front calipers and the brake junction (boy - when it rains, it pours! Obviously there's a lot of air still in the system from having 3 components replaced in a short period of time, especially since there's a lot of air space in that brake junction!

I did bleed thoroughly per the FAQ, but things are still squishy. Should I bleed the master cylinder too, then? The reservoir went down a lot when I did the job, but didn't empty completely. If I do have to bleed the MC, when should I do it - before everything else in sequence, or at the end? The car is a '92 with ABS.

Thanks!

HI,

I work with a guy who was a volvo tech for 15 years, and he clued me in to the following. Apparently the ABS unit is very prone to getting air in it when doing the front calipers. The solution: bleed the brakes, then find a gravel parking lot or wet road and do a few panic stops in order to get the ABS to activate a few times on all four wheels. This should be enough to move the air down into the bleedable part of the system. Rebleed the system, and you should be good to go. I tried EVERYTHING to get rid of my spongy pedal, and this finally did the trick. I'm not saying that this is your problem for certain, but if all else fails it is worth a try.

Good Luck!

If you are bleeding the system the FAQs have a lot of good information, but here is my two cents. 1)Take the lines off of the master cylinder and used a bleed kit from the parts store to bleed the air out of the master cylinder. This will take about 20 minutes. 2)Replace the brake lines and bleed the air out of the junction. 3)Bleed the calipers. Make certain that the caliper bleeders have a hose attached that runs into a jar with brake fluid. This will keep you from sucking air back up into the lines.

Regards,
--
Will Dallas, www.willdallas.us, www.willdallas.org, www.willdallas.com, www.dallasprecision.com 86 245 DL 222K miles, 93 940 260K miles, 88 765 GLE 152K miles

If after bleeding and trying all the tricks your peddle is still soft or slowly moves to the floor, you may have a master cylinder that has a seal "leak-by" problem.